The shipwreck of grieving

Paintings of past lives and future projects

This is an experiment using a failed watercolor portrait from a life drawing session. I recently watched Dan Peterson’s video on how he does his remarkable paintings. He uses Elmer’s glue! So I gave it a shot, as well as using some mastic to block out areas of the painting. I am not sure how I feel about this technique, nor how long it will last, but it does make the colors nice and rich. Mr. Peterson gets an almost glossy look to his paintings, and the colors glow like jewels. I will have to experiment

Saturday I went to a studio sale for an artist that I just recently met. But in that way we sometimes have, I feel like I’ve known him for a very long time. Perhaps he is just that kind of a person, the type of person people connect to easily. Perhaps. Some people are that way.

The gallery was full of his beautiful landscapes, a body of work that encompassed years. He is clearing out his studio, and ready to embark on a new project involving travel, video, and painting, as well as a pilgrimage of sorts to the vast wheat fields of Middle-America. If he’ll agree to share, I’ll try to write about it on my blog.

He’s been a professional painter for a long time. He took a different flight path for his life than I did, and decided he needed to paint when I was still trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. But his life, like everyone’s life, is still changing and evolving. I couldn’t help but feel sad for the beautiful paintings that he said he was going to burn if they didn’t go to good homes. A big pyre, he said, that he’ll video tape as part of his next project. An incineration perhaps, of earlier chapters of his life, in order to reinvent himself like a firebird.

I looked longingly at the paintings, sadly totting up my finances to figure a way to own one of his works. “Which do you like?” he asked. I pointed out two that I loved, for reasons of my own. “How much?” I said.

He quietly and sweetly gifted them to me.

I’m sure we’ve met before.

This post is in response to a prompt from WordPress University Writing 101: A Room with a View

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One thought on “Paintings of past lives and future projects”

The bird on this blog

My mother passed away in the last hours of 2016. Sometimes when life hurts too much, I need to write and share. This year, that's what I'm doing. I'm warning you, at least for the foreseeable future, this blog will be about loss and how to deal with it.

If you want happiness, painting tips, and pleasant nattering, visit my website, www.Margaretsloan.com. I promise, there won't be a lot of sadness there.